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[lookingforoctober]

The thing about writing fanfiction is that other people write about exactly the same characters (well, theoretically the same, within the scope of interpretation).

It's both sort of cool (you can look at what other people do and see how they interpret these characters) and sort of weird. I always wonder if someone else has already done the thing I'm trying to do...and then I decide they probably have, more or less...

Comments

[nemo_r]

I hate finding that someone else has written the same idea as me, it makes me insecure. It's probably partly why I tend to write in smaller fandoms and read in bigger ones. That's awful isn't it? I just assume that the other fics are better than mine. It's very stressful!

I like how people's interpretations of characters can affect the whole of fandom though, that's really interesting, the way fanon characters arise.

[lookingforoctober]

Really, everyone brings something different to writing, so even if it's the same basic idea, no one else has written the story the way you write it.

It's still weird to think about though. In my case, writing in BtVS, since it was bigger in the past, it was probably someone in the past having the same idea...

[nemo_r]

That's true. I try to keep it in mind.

Yeah, it's this whole collective, connected consciousness. Through what we watch and the way it shapes our thoughts and fandom as a network of thinkers rather than creators. Or something. Does any of that make sense? It's invisible connections. I love that about fandom. The way we get each other, but it's all in a secret language. Outsiders need not apply.

[lookingforoctober]

Oh, I was thinking the other day about how fandom is a network. So many of the connections are person to person... I can't really claim to know fandom well, though, fandom as a whole seems vast.

I hope it's not too terribly secret, though. I'm still figuring out a lot about fandom myself.

[nemo_r]

Not secret as such, but you do sort of pick stuff up, fandom osmisis, and then you're having a conversation with another fan and you suddenly think, hey if a non-fan were to overhear us they would have NO IDEA WHAT WE WERE ON ABOUT. With all our acronyms and slang and secret handshakes...

[lookingforoctober]

Oh yes, that is so true. Those kind are often the really good conversations, too.